Berlin, April 1, 1748.

Uncle Barry,--I dictate to Pippi, my right hand being wounded, and
that by no common accident. Going down the Linden Strasse
yesterday, I encountered a mob; and, being curious in Potzdorff's
interest, penetrated to the kernel of it. There I found two men of
my old regiment--Kurz and another--at words with a small, dark,
nimble fellow, who carried bright and dancing eyes in a pock-marked
face. He had his iron drawn, a heavy box-handled cut-and-thrust
blade, and seemed ready to fall at once on the pair that had been
jeering him for his strange speech.

"Who is this, lads?" I asked.

"Ein Englander," answered they.

"No Englishman," says he, in a curious accent not unlike our
brogue, "but a plain gentleman, though he bears a king's name and
hath Alan Breck to his by-name."

"Come, come," says I in German, "let the gentleman go his way; he
is my own countryman." This was true enough for them; and you
should have seen the Highlander's eyes flash, and grow dim again.

I took his arm, for Potzdorff will expect me to know all about the
stranger, and marched him down to the Drei Konige.

"I am your host, sir; what do you call for, Mr. Stuart of -?" said